


I Shall Be Released

by Panzerhund



Series: Military, Historical, and Wasteland Undyne stories [1]
Category: Undertale (Video Game), Vietnam War - Fandom
Genre: 1970, Alternate Universe - Historical, F/M, Military, Sad and Happy, Undyne - Freeform, Vietnam War, War, undertale - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:07:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24125626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Panzerhund/pseuds/Panzerhund
Summary: Undyne and Anon have a heart-to-hear while out on patrol during the Vietnam War.
Relationships: Undyne (Undertale)/Reader
Series: Military, Historical, and Wasteland Undyne stories [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1740763
Kudos: 2





	I Shall Be Released

**Author's Note:**

> This was another request done for the defunct Undyne thread. I tend to write these stories while listening to appropriate music for the story or their settings. As the title would suggest "I Shall Be Released" by The Band is the recommended song for this story.

“I want a perimeter set up on along that tree line. Whitey, I want you and Carson set up on that hill. If anything, remotely close to a gomer comes through those trees I want you to light those fuckers up.”

“And if they’re not, sir?” Comes an exasperated call from the edge of the clearing.

“They shouldn’t have gone through the jungle after dark then,” Sarge says as he throws down his pack, “we’ve been in this goddamn shit for ten fucking years, Whitey. If Mama-san hasn’t figured out to stay in her hooch after dark, she ain't gonna learn anytime soon.”

You look down the line as the other Marines start dropping their gear and digging in for the evening. If you didn’t know better you could have sworn that you’d been humping these hills for a full day. But the unrelenting humidity along with the random showers have a way of making you lose track of time. As soon as you gain sight of Undyne you wave her over to the driest spot you could find at the base of the small hill.

“What, no room service?” Undyne scoffs as you start digging a foxhole in the mud. Setting down her own pack and picking up an E-tool she starts digging alongside you, nudging you every few moments to break your pace. 

Everything had always been a race with her. If she wasn’t trying to beat you on the obstacle course at Parris, then she was peeling potatoes so fast she’d cut her hands during KP. At first, you thought she’d hated you, but if you ever caught hell from the Smokies, she’d be right there taking the punishment with you.

“Room service? I thought YOU were the room service!”

“You try getting a Saigon suck-off, and you’re going to find my fist in your mouth, asshole.”

“With those teeth? Hell no. I’d ask Popeye before I’d ask you to go near my dick.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t doubt you’ve asked him already, isn’t that right Pop?” She calls out with a toothy grin.

“All the time! I had to start wearing a grenade in my drawers to scare him off!”

The other Marines close to you start laughing, and for a second you can feel your cheeks get hot. Undyne gives you a nudge and the two of you get back to work. As soon as you finish digging the rain returns. You quickly pull out your poncho and put it on, watching as Undyne allows the rain to hit her face, and run down her fins. You almost feel bad for her, she would’ve been a great Frogman. Sure the suck may be wet on occasion, but it’s also hotter than hell.

“Hey, Starkist, you going to get in here, or would you prefer giving Charlie the personal invitation?”

“Shut up. I’m just rinsing off is all, even I’m starting to smell me.”

“They never said Nam was going to keep you clean.”

“I never said they did,” she grunts snatching her poncho from your hand, “but it’d be nice to get a shower more than once a week.”

“You sure do a lot of bitching for someone who claims they hate bitching.”

“I hate YOU, bitching,” she snickers taking a seat in the mud next to you, “I don’t mind bitching if I’m the one doing it.”

“That’s just because you are THE bitch.”

“You’re lucky I like you, otherwise I’d kick your ass.”

“You already do kick my ass!”

“More then.”

The two of you laugh. It’s moments like these that make you content with being stuck in the shit. You can’t think of anyone you’d rather have in your hole than Undyne.

Even if it's a pain the pitter-patter of rain is calming. Spending a night in the field always gives you anxiety. Every alien sound coming from the jungle could be VC, or any number of man-eating beasts that live there.

At this point, you’re not sure what’s worse:the VC or the fauna. Ramirez had been taken out of country three weeks back after a rat took a hole out of his cheek. Another guy in Fox company had been bitten by a snake, and rumor had it an entire squad of Aussies was wiped out by a pack of tigers in 68. A rumor, but that didn’t make it seem any less real when you were actually in the shit. Where every broken twig could mean a group of angry farmers trying to get rid of you.

“What’s on your mind punk?”

Thinking about VC riding tigers had you almost forgetting about Undyne. Trying to get rid of the vivid thought of Viet-Cong sappers strangling you in your sleep, you struggled to say something.

“Home.”

Shit.

The one thing you’d agreed never to talk about. Can't focus in the field if you're more worried about home.

“Yeah, me too,” Undyne says with a sigh. This was one of the few times you’d ever seen her look remotely sad. Instantly you regret bringing it up, but before you can fumble a change of topic she starts talking again.

“I miss it, you know? Every day I wish I could be back there, in the World. But I don’t know if I’d want to be there now.”

“They wouldn’t understand, would they?” You venture. You know how your parents reacted when you told them you’d enlisted to avoid the fear of being drafted. The disappointment in your mother’s eyes always came back to you when things got tough out here.

“No, they wouldn’t. My people are different. It’s a whole ‘nother world down there. At least if I went back to LA, people might understand. But back home, they just wouldn’t get it.”

“What was it like down there?”

Undyne takes a moment and looks across the field with a half-smile, clearly remembering the good times and the good people at home. You remember going fishing with your grandfather on the lake near his home before you shipped out to basic. When he told you about the War. He was the only one in your family who’d ever understood you. He knew what made you want to leave, the same thing that had made him. You bite down on your lip just thinking about it. Thankfully Undyne was lost in her own thoughts, and wouldn’t make fun of you. But, looking at her you doubt she would anyway.

“It was peaceful. Quiet. Just, different. They’re all different down there. I don’t know how to describe it, they were all… Squares? Is that the word? Stuffed-shirts, and Puritans who had gotten so used to living down there, that the idea of getting out just made them mad. I wanted to be out here so bad. I used to cry as a little girl, just dreaming of seeing the sun and the moon. But I didn’t have anyone that would listen. The Old Man, he loved me, but he didn’t get it. ‘It’s safe down here,’ he always told me. So, I became sort of a problem child. It felt claustrophobic down there, you know?”

You nodded in agreement, but you didn’t really know. How could you?

Your parents had been protective, sure, but what parents weren’t? You could still go out of the house and play whenever you wanted, walk down to the store and grab cokes with your friends. You could visit Grandpa in the winter and go sledding, or to your cousins in San Diego and go to the beach. No matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t imagine living without the sun for so much as a week, much less most of your life.

“I was always a bitch. Fighting anyone who’d try and get in my way. Just kicking ass and taking names for as long as I can remember. When the gates finally opened I was the first one out. God. I can’t even tell you how beautiful the sun was that day. How it felt on my skin. The breeze on my fins. Vietnam may be shit, but I swear I’ve never seen anything as fucking beautiful as the sunrise here. It just feels… free.”

“Yeah, I guess the suck can be nice when it wants to.”

“Yeah…” Undyne whispers, looking out across the clearing.

You don’t want to push the topic, but the only times you’ve ever caught her with her guard down was when she was drunk. And then it was more of a mix of angry slurred anecdotes, than real stories.

“Did you ever have a boyfriend?”

Stupid.

Why of all the things you could have asked did you say that?

“None worth mentioning. There was a girl I liked though,” She says wistfully, her fins drooping ever-so-slightly, but enough for you to take note of, “Things are different down there.”

“It’s all good. If you actually think I’d judge you we must not be that close.”

“I know you wouldn’t, asshole.” She says somewhat angrily, “I’m just saying.”

For a moment, there’s an angry silence between the two of you. Only the sound of rain on your helmets and distant conversations from the other Marines. You obviously hit a chord.

“What was she like?”

Undyne quietly chuckles, and you can tell this memory hurts.

“She was the nicest girl I’d ever met. She understood how I felt. Wanting to get out, be free. I don’t know how she did it, but she got her hands-on comics. Captain America, Batman, Roy Rogers, you name it. I loved reading them. I always went over to her house, and we’d pour hours into reading, and talking about the surface. We had a neighbor who was a bit eccentric, and we’d all talk for hours. Just dreaming being out here.”

“Sounds like you guys were thick.”

“We were,” She says softly, “Until we weren’t.”

Most people would change the topic, but you weren’t known for being the most socially adept person.

“What happened?”

“I left for the surface, and so did she. But, our ideas on how the world would be were different. I wanted to travel, see everything the humans had done. We got as far as New York, before she decided to go home.” Undyne sighed, and you could see the tears welling up in her eyes, despite the rain.

“When she told me, I didn’t know how to react. I started crying and I told her I loved her. I’d always been a tough bitch, and I don’t think even she expected me to act the way I did. I kissed her, and she told me she did to. But that she couldn’t stay up here. She was always a fucking coward.” Undyne said through gritted teeth.

“I’m sure she meant well.”

“So am I, and that makes it even worse. She told me she’d write. And for a while she did. But as soon as I went to camp, she stopped. When we graduated, I asked the Old Folks where she was, and I went AWOL to go home and confront her. She’d pulled a Dear John on me, without even bothering to write me the fucking letter.”

Undyne choked back a sob, and you instinctively forced your hand on hers under your ponchos. For a second you were worried she’d slap you, but instead you felt her nails dig into your hand as she took a crushing hold of it. For a few moments, you sat there in near silence as Undyne brought herself together. Thank God that monsoon season was on your side, and no one could hear the two of you over the pouring rain.

Finally, she spoke.

“I think she was afraid of ruining it. She’d never been with anyone before, I would have been her first. I knew she’d always had a thing for me, I guess she didn’t want to take her chances. She’d gotten involved with some six-legged bitch of a home-maker. She said she was content staying there, that she just wasn’t ready for the outside. And that she was happy, but she wanted me to be happy with someone else. I don’t know if she was lying, and I don’t fucking care.”

“If it makes you feel any better, my old girlfriend fucked my best friend for over a year, before they decided to tell me, after I caught them in the act in my own room.”

Why are you so fucking stupid?

“Yeah,” she chuckles giving you a toothy smile, “that actually does make me feel better. At least my girl stuck with me until the end.”  
The two of you laugh as the rain begins to let up. After a few moments, the sky begins to clear and the moon and stars make their appearance.

“Just look at that sky.” Undyne says, and you can see the little girl staring out in wonder. “For all the shit that’s happened, I wouldn’t give this view up for the world.”

“Yeah, me neither.”

You both sit silently listening to the sounds of the jungle and staring out at the starry sky until dawn arrives and the platoon moves out. Undyne holding onto your hand all the while.

**Author's Note:**

> If there's a setting or story you have an idea for in the Wasteland or history setting for Undyne and the reader, feel free to chime down below and I'll add them to the list. Thank you for reading.


End file.
